A new electronic program will be replacing the original paper format that manages all UF grant proposals.
The UF Integrated Research Support Tool, or UFIRST, will be launching its first phase Monday. UFIRST will be a single, online unified system where every department and unit of UF can manage all research funding.
After Friday, paper applications will no longer be accepted. Electronic applications will be accepted Monday.
Stephanie Gray, director of the Division of Sponsored Programs, said research is defined as any scholarly activity for faculty.
Therefore, research isn’t limited to labs run by scientists in white coats — the grants can also cover professional conferences.
Gray said there are about 3,000 research sponsors within the university, so the program will become a direct communication between faculty and the federal grant portal, Grants.gov.
With UFIRST, faculty can go to one location to review their awards and manage them proactively.
According to the UF Office of Research’s 2014 annual report, the university has received at least $702 million in grants, with more than half coming from the federal government.
The program is designed to be intuitive, Gray said.
“It’s like going on Amazon for the first time,” Gray said. “You don’t need training to learn how to buy something.”
Adrienne Fagan, research coordinator for the UF Division of Sponsored Programs, said there has been in-depth training for the support staff working with the program on a daily basis.
Fagan, who was part of the brainstorming and implementation team, said the most challenging part of project was accommodating all of the departments’ varying business processes.
She recruited experts in grants from different departments to center the program around the people who will be using it the most.
“That to me is pretty unusual when it comes to computing for such a huge enterprise such as ourselves,” Fagan said.
Fagan said the program has received good feedback from the support staff, and there are numerous resources to train and guide the people who will be using it.
Phase two of the program should be launching in Fall. The third and final phase, a new award-management program, is set to launch in Spring 2016.
Gray said the goal is to create a common tool for faculty to bridge the gap among departments.
“This allows our faculty to remove one more barrier,” she said, “and allows us to grow our portfolio in our seek for preeminence.”
[A version of this story ran on page 4 on 3/11/2015]
